


I See You

by Ruby_Eyes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-23 16:21:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14336361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Eyes/pseuds/Ruby_Eyes
Summary: She would take just one more cup of coffee. Live just one more night.





	I See You

**Author's Note:**

> Angst with an open ending. If you hate such things, turn around and save yourself. You've been warned.
> 
> Although if you really wanna see it, you're free to make up a very happy ending. ;)
> 
> Unbetaed and has tons of mistakes. Sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> I wanna thank weirddaydreamingfangirl for all her encouraging words while I was writing this and that longer, more detailed version of this thing (that one isn't finished yet tho). Actually, thank you for existing, kid. XD Sometimes, I just stare at a distance like Jon Snow does and think of how much fun I would have missed had I not gathered the courage to pm you last year. Mehehehe. Chill. Breathe. And let's have some more fun for a very long time so we don't end up brooding like Snow all the time (paminsan-minsan na lang XD). <3

 

One. She would take just one more cup of coffee. Live just one more night. Allow herself one more chance to consider whether it was still worthwhile – living a wasted life, progressing oh-so-slowly with no idea where she’s going. On rare times, she would eat, especially when her stomach would continuously growl, _Feed me, I beg of you_. She would sleep some days when even insomnia could not anymore win over how exhausted her body was. She would exist even when there was no longer any reason to . Yes, just one more cup.

 

Two. Only two people had been inside the convenience store where she chose to stay for a while, to hide and deny to the world and herself that there was that dark, terrifying space in her life, in her head. Two people: her – Brienne – and the store manager/owner. Two times, she made sure first that she’d be the only person in that store that actually rarely had any customers, especially at night. For two hours, she just stared at her cup of coffee, just before the first time _they_ had met. And when _he_ arrived, there’d been...

 

Three. Three people in there now, three persons who each had no idea what the others were going through. When the third person came in, the lady hiccuped three times. How could she not when the manliest, handsomest man on the face of the earth just turned to look at her? With his ice cream cone, he walked towards her and sat on the other side of her small table, the only one currently usable in that store. She wasn’t the reason why the man approached; it’s just that the other nearby table had a broken leg and the other one had overflowing trash.

 

Four. She forcefully tugged at her long sleeve four times; desperately trying to cover the marks of the mistake she did the night before – a mistake that wasn’t entirely out of her to-do-again list just yet, especially now that...

 

Five. As if on cue, five insults automatically spewed out of the mouth of the man before her. Oh, she was a woman. She shouldn’t scowl too much as it worsens her already ugly features. When she flushed from anger, the asshole even laughed and remarked that she looked like a volcano about to erupt. To shield herself from the insults that weren’t really that new to her but still brought some sting, she stayed silent. Still, he went on and declared there wouldn’t have been much difference, really, had she been a man. _You cannot provoke me to anger,_ she growled, and immediately he retorted that he already had, a long while ago. But...

 

Six. It only took six seconds for the arrogant man to turn around a bit and say, _You should be thankful you have the most astonishing blue eyes._

Seven. Seven consecutive nights, the stupid stranger kept coming back to the store that, as usual, had no customers but one. He finally introduced himself as _Kingslayer_ , slayer of all the bullies and hooligans of the world who liked to pretend to be kings. Quite an ironic nickname for him but he did surprise her for the seven nights that followed their first meeting. She made a decision every night that week – to repeatedly give one more chance to any of the Seven Gods who still had time to care about her.  _Just one more cup,_ she’d thought. She didn’t really have any reason for going back to the store for another cup. She coupd swear it hadn’t been because the arrogant man she’d just met seemingly had gotten tired of insulting her. It definitely wasn’t because of his habit of sitting opposite from her either – despite the other two tables having been fixed and cleaned up. Most especially, it wasn’t because of his japes that somehow felt more endearing and less insulting as time went by. Even when he’d frankly told her, _I think I prefer talking to you more, instead of my pretentious friends and family; your frowns and little snorts are every bit truer than the poisonous smiles of the people I love..._ No... He still wasn’t the reason why she kept coming back to the store for another cup of coffee. He shouldn’t be. But something in her mind had kept countering her every no. That same part of her brain also pushed her to tell him about how she’d tried to kill herself, the few times she'd wanted to be the one to decide when she should leave this world and let the Stranger take...

 

Eight. The eight lives she had hoped would be enough to satisfy the gods, to urge them to stop taking and taking lives that some people actually do deserve to live. Eight lives, seven that had already been taken, and one more she was about to give – her dad and mom, Galladon and her two sisters who didn’t even get to be named before dying, Renly, Catelyn, and the last one, her own life. But...

 

Nine. _Give me nine weeks, please,_ he had asked – no -- begged. He said he wanted to pay her for the time she had spent listening to him without complaint. He asked her not to accompany the other seven for now. Maybe the Seven Gods can just make do with the seven people they’ve already taken, at least temporarily. She’d assumed he had wanted company for a bit longer. Well, not a small bit – that’s nine long weeks. When she asked why nine weeks, he said he didn’t know. She guessed it had something to do with why he keeps wearing a shirt with nine torn threads at the end of his right sleeve – tears that looked quite like those of one of her father’s old shirts, one she still loved wearing until now. She hadn’t been sure as to why, but she immediately said yes to those nine weeks. _Could it have something to do with how he smelled so good and how his scent seemed faintly similar to the perfume Galladon used to wear?_ Never mind. She wouldn’t think much of it.It wasn’t as if she had anything more to lose if she’d just give a little more time to a man who was just feeling lonely like she was.

 

Ten. Ten pictures she had taken in secret were now posted on her bedroom wall. Ten photos of the man who had consistently made her heart beat faster, kept her much more awake every time she’d tried to fall asleep. Well, at least that same man had kept her company every sleepless night, touring around the city on her bike, his arms around her waist. Two of the pictures she'd taken were by the sea, while he was smiling at the sunset and the reddening sky. Two more were shot while he was getting their helmets ready by her motorbike. There’d also been one of him when he fell asleep on her shoulder. Two more photographs, one each in front of the Warrior and the Maiden, where she’d read his lips whispering her name as he prayed. The last three had been from different angles when she spotted him waiting for her to come out by her house’s gate. She didn’t come out to see him that night. She needed to avoid him after he’d stolen a kiss from her while they were in front of the Seven Gods in the Great Sept.

 

Ten. On ten different attempts, her “friend”, Sansa, tried to convince her to introduce this _secret beau_ of hers. Maybe it would be alright to consider her mentor, Catelyn’s, eldest daughter as a “friend” – even though she wasn’t one the redhead’s beautiful friends, right? However, despite their “friendship”, there wasn’t really a _secret beau_ to be introduced. She had to admit to herself she might already be falling for the kind man, but she knew very well he only sees her as a friend. _That kiss couldn’t have possibly meant anything,_ she had told herself. _Surely, it can’t._

 

Nine. Nine weeks had quickly come and gone. _He_ had paid off his so-called debt. But she wasn’t ready for him leaving just yet. The idea of ending her life didn’t seem all encouraging now, too. But what else was there to do when the only friend she had ought to leave soon? That only friend whom she didn’t need quotation marks for in her mind unlike Sansa. Sansa, who once again urged her and finally did manage to convince her to tell the story of this man who had her heart pounding in her chest.

 

Eight. Eight seconds passed and Sansa hadn’t made a move nor breathed at all. _There’s no man in these photos,_ Sansa murmured. There’s just the sea and the sunset in two, her bike in the other two; one had been a photo of her right shoulder, one of the Warrior, of the Maiden, and three different shots of her house’s gate. Tears started plummeting endlessly from Sansa’s eyes. The redhead had begged her to go back to her psychiatrist, and this time, finish the whole series of tests and therapy, so that she could start living a normal life again. From there, she’d realized: the nine torn threads on his sleeve, the scent he had that she liked so much...were actually things _she_ had been wearing, but her mind had set those on another separate personality. An alter ego that she had fallen in love with. An illusion that made her feel accepted despite her ugly face. All just one huge delusion her fucked up brain had made up.

 

Seven. Tormund determinedly tried seven times to get through her now dead heart. He even had Sansa’s support as according to her red-headed friend, the red-haired man had been staring longingly (she knew  leering was the more appropriate term) at her. However, with or without her “Kingslayer”, she didn’t want any man in her life. It wasn’t a good enough reason that Tormund seemed to be the only man to have lusted over her. No one should expect her to give in to his insistence to make her his wife and make giant babies with him. There were more important things the world needed other than fulfilling one’s body’s desires...body, which in her case, only served as a bearer of a barren heart and an insane brain.

 

Six. It took six years before she fully understood what had gone wrong with her head. For an entire six years, she lived with that other _voice – he_ had become a mere voice now, the voice of the man she once loved. It look a very long process, therapies, medicines and more so she could _co-exist_ with him _,_ and for him to stop interfering with her reality and life. But according to him, and as confirmed by her doctor, he had only been there as her _protector_. He just wanted to make sure she would never try to hurt herself again.

Consequently, she’d realized and accepted that, really, a man who would love and accept her for exactly the way she was couldn’t be anything but a mere hallucination. To make things worse, now, not only is she the tall, ugly girl; she’d be the tall, ugly psycho.

 

Five. Five weeks before the scheduled end of her psychotherapy, _his_ voice had started to slowly disappear. He had already said his goodbyes once, too, expressly telling her that someone does love her. _He_ counts as someone – _she_ does. He may be a mere alter ego, but his love for her meant that she loves herself. And that counts. The doctor told her that in a short time from then, she could start living her life again. With her insomnia dealt with, she could get a good sleep on most nights now, just like almost everyone else. She could start telling herself that her condition can only be called a disorder if she starts being difficult to the people around her. And she’d never done that so far. Just five more weeks, and she’d be normal again. She can go out more with her friend, Sansa, too. Now, she didn’t have to use the quotation marks anymore. It had been a few months since she had started hanging out with the redhead’s kind-hearted pals, Jeyne and Myrcella. Soon, she’d truly be free.

 

Four. She blinked her eyes four times and pinched her thigh, refusing to believe what she was seeing -- _him_. She stood frozen while her three friends were busy buying things from the newly-renovated convenience store, that same one where _they_ had met. It took all her energy to prevent her incoming panic attack what with her seeing hallucinations again. She counted down from ten in her head, thinking of the almost ten long years of therapy she had gone through. And for what? Only for her to see this alter ego of hers once again? She’d already accepted her fate – living alone until she grows old, getting visits from only her very few friends. She didn’t need that hallucination any longer. _Kingslayer,_ she murmured as she stared at the now bearded and older but more insanely beautiful specter of a man _._ She’d thought he would turn her way like he did before but he only looked past her -- as if he didn't know her -- and smiled… at Myrcella. Was it possible that even her alter ego had chosen someone else other than her? Was he another alter who’d fallen for another pretty girl and not her? Just what in the seven hells was he there for?

 

Three. He took three steps, and once again, he was right in front of her. She clenched her teeth three times, struggling to fight the tears threatening to fall, tears of frustration with herself.

 

Two. Two important things had changed. Instead of having just one torn sleeve, the man in front of her had one missing hand. Also, she couldn’t smell Galladon’s perfume on him. He smelled different,  better. Still, she couldn’t help calling  _his_ name  once again, the name of the man she had almost chosen over her therapies. _Kingslayer?_

 

One. He arched one brow. Myrcella blurted one loud ‘What?’, and then asked what she just called the blonde’s uncle. Her heart skipped one beat. Could it be that _he_ wasn’t just her hallucination? She repeated _his_ name one last time, _Kingslayer._ He shook his head and gave her one sincere smile, one with no mockery, just pure beauty and earnestness. _Jaime,_ he told her. _My name is Jaime._

**Author's Note:**

> Title and writing style taken from a Filipino film called 'Kita Kita' which translates to 'I see You'. If you've seen my fic titled Kita Kita written in Wikang Filipino, this is a translation of that one, just with some revisions needed as a direct translation wouldn't be as interesting.
> 
> Fun Fact: The pseud I used for Kita Kita, Pulang_Hiyas, does not translate to Ruby_Eyes; although it means red jewel, which describes ruby :)
> 
> Shoutout to Wenchofcasterlytarth and Sammy! ;)


End file.
